1 Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun (19 page)

"Yes."

"You'll find I'm a man of my word. I don't go around screwing
people."

Sure, I once thought the same of Karl. What was that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me? From
now on my skepticism ran deep.

I arrived home after nine, tired and hungry, but relieved that I
no longer had to worry about Batswin and Robbins pinning a murder rap on me-or Zachary Barnes pulling out of the rental. My
newly elevated comfort level lasted only until I pulled into the driveway and my headlights spotlighted the broken basement window.

MY HEART RACED AS I grabbed my cell phone and called the
house. One ring. Two rings. I had no idea if the intruder was still
inside. Three rings.

"Hello?"

"Nick, is everything okay?"

He laughed. "Kind of depends on your definition of okay,
doesn't it, Mom?"

Was this a hint of a problem? "What do you mean?"

"Well, the Grandmas are accusing each other of plotting the
world's destruction, as usual. Mephisto and Catherine the Great
are circling each other like two cocks about to spar, as usual. And
Ralph is squawking play-by-play, as usual. So I guess nothing's really okay, but it's pretty much normal for here, right?"

"Right"

"Where are you?" he asked.

"In the driveway."

"Huh?"

"I'll explain in a minute." After placing a call to the Westfield
police, I shut off the engine and headed for the back door.

As much as I had hoped the broken window was the result of a
stray baseball, the evidence proved otherwise. Someone had definitely broken into my house. Again. Large, muddy footprints led
from the top of the washing machine, which sat directly under the
cellar window, across the laundry room, through the basement,
and up the stairs.

Of course neither the boys nor their grandmothers had noticed-let alone cleaned up-the dirt that was tracked across the
kitchen floor and ground into the dining room and living room
carpets.

"Anything missing?" asked Fogarty when he and Harley arrived
five minutes later.

"Not that I can see," I said.

Unlike the previous break-in, the house hadn't been trashed.
Otherwise, I would have immediately suspected Ricardo. However,
like last time, the intruder had left undisturbed both the few pieces
of good jewelry I owned, and the electronics and computer equipment.

This made two break-ins in twenty-four hours with nothing
taken. And that sent a sub-zero wind chill coursing up my spine
and through my veins. Was the burglar looking for something very
specific, or were we dealing with some creep playing a perverted
game? Did all of this have something to do with Karl's secret life?
Were there more unsavory things I had yet to learn about my husband? More unsavory associates of his waiting to pounce on me
and my family?

"And no one saw or heard anything?" asked Harley, his stub of
a pencil poised over his spiral-bound pocket notepad.

"Heard you of nothing strange about the streets? Antony and
Cleopatra. Act Four, Scene Three."

Harley jumped at the sound of Ralph squawking his two cents
worth of Shakespeare, then forced a chuckle to mask his embarrassment. "Forgot about him," he muttered, shaking his head.

"That's one damn smart bird," said Fogarty. "Ever think of putting him in show business?"

"He only speaks when the mood strikes him," I said, watching
Ralph swoop from one lampshade across the room to another,
where he had a better bead on Catherine the Great. The haughty
feline paused from grooming her privates to bestow a disdainful
glare on Ralph.

"Too bad he can't tell us what he saw." Harley turned his attention to the boys. "How about you guys? See or hear anything?"

Nick and Alex shook their heads. "We didn't get home until
after five," said Alex. "I was at the library."

"I had basketball practice," said Nick.

Fogarty turned to Mama and Lucille. "What about you ladies?"

Lucille, clutching a growling Mephisto to her chest, glowered at
Fogarty as if he had just accused her of voting for Ronald Reagan.
Twice. "I was out all day. And I have plenty of witnesses."

Fogarty and Harley exchanged odd glances but neither commented. Fogarty backed away a step or two but kept a leery eye on
Mephisto.

Harley continued his questioning. "And you, ma'am?" he asked
Mama.

She tossed her head back and finger-fluffed a lock of newly cut
and colored hair with her freshly polished French manicure. "Not
while I was home," she said in a perfect imitation of Liz Taylor's
seductive little girl voice, "but I did spend several hours at that day
spa on Elm this afternoon." Then she batted her mascara-coated
eyelashes at him.

Poor Seamus O'Keefe was still warm in his coffin, but that didn't
stop Mama, the quintessential flirt, in her quest for Husband Number Six-even if Officer Harley was nearly young enough to be her
son.

I stole a quick glance at the third finger of his pudgy left hand.
No wedding band, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

I thought about warning him, but if Mama hooked him as a
Seamus replacement, I'd have one less headache-not to mention
bruiseless legs. So I kept quiet. Every woman to herself. Besides,
all's fair in love and war, and Officer Harley looked quite capable
of taking care of himself.

Harley scrubbed at his jaw, apparently immune or unaware of
Mama's seductive charms. "That's when the perp must've struck.
Maybe he heard you come home and high-tailed it out before he
could grab anything or do any damage."

He turned to me. "This may or may not be the same guy as last
time. We've had a rash of burglaries in the area over the past few
days and not much in the way of clues."

"Similar to mine where the house is trashed but nothing
taken?"

"No, that's the odd part of this. All the other homes reported
items missing."

"And none of them were tossed the way yours was yesterday,"
said Fogarty. "We've beefed up patrols in the neighborhood, but if
I were you, Mrs. Pollack, I'd think about getting an alarm system
installed"

Sure, with the one hundred thirty-seven dollars and fifty-three
cents left in my checking account. "I'll consider it," I said as I
walked Fogarty and Harley to the door.

"The cops in this town are a waste of taxpayer money," muttered Lucille after I closed the door behind the officers. "Those two
are no different from all the rest. Only interested in harassing honest, hard-working people."

I suspected her comment had something to do with the jaywalking ticket she'd received the day before. You'd think after
nearly getting herself killed jaywalking across Queens Boulevard
several months ago, my mother-in-law would have learned her lesson. Not Lucille. She expected the world and all its traffic to stop
whenever she stepped off a curb. Intersection or no intersection.
Green light or red.

Mephisto bared his teeth and growled in agreement of her assessment of Westfield's finest.

That did it. I was tired, hungry, cranky, and pre-menstrual, and
that poor excuse for a dog was a convenient target.

I spun around, baring my own pearly whites. "Some watchdog
you are. If you want your daily dose of kibble, you'd better start
pulling your weight around here. I can't afford you and an alarm
system."

He answered me with a king-of-the-jungle snarl. Too bad he
acted like the Cowardly Lion. Instead of behaving like other
members of his species and chewing the intruder's tibialis and gastrocnemius into mincemeat, the yellow-bellied chicken of a
dog had probably hidden under a bed at the first sound of breaking glass.

Lucille's face hardened. Her eyes narrowed. The purple veins
on both sides of her forehead throbbed to attention. "He's not a
watchdog," she said, "and now you've gone and upset him!"

With one arm still clutching Mephisto to her bosom, she shuffled down the hall, her cane echoing her anger as she pounded it
on the hardwood.

I refrained from growling back at both of them.

I'd spent all of last night cleaning up from the last break-in
with little help from the rest of my family. Everyone had had a
handy excuse. Lucille cited her recent injuries, Mama managed to
come down with a convenient migraine, and both boys had tests
to study for and homework assignments due the next day.

Tonight I was accepting no excuses. After handing Mama the
carpet cleaner and ordering the boys to wash the kitchen floor,
stairs, cellar floor, and top of the washing machine, I grabbed my
keys and coat to head for Home Depot.

"What about Grandmother Lucille?" asked Nick.

"Yeah, how come she doesn't have to help?" asked Alex.

"Because if she got down on her hands and knees to scrubnot that she would-it would take the four of us to haul her back
up. Besides, between her poor eyesight and rotten attitude, we'd
only have to redo whatever she did."

I left to the sound of grumbling complaints. You'd think I'd
asked them to clean the floors of Grand Central Station with a
toothbrush. Maybe it was time I came clean to my sons and told
them the bitter truth of our situation.

I'd totally forgotten about Zachary Barnes until I arrived home to
find him sitting at my kitchen table with Mama, Alex, and Nick.
For two smart kids, mine sure act like a couple of nincompoops
sometimes. As for Mama, her common sense disappeared sometime between her Periwinkle and Ramirez stints and hasn't been
seen or heard from since.

"Sorry I wasn't here when you arrived," I told him, "but I guess
it really didn't matter, did it?" I said this last part as I glared at my
sons.

"What did we do?" asked Nick.

"You tell me. We've had two break-ins in two days, and you let
a total stranger into the house? What's wrong with this picture?"

"What stranger?" asked Alex. "He's our new tenant."

"And exactly how did you know that?"

"Because he said so."

"Well, then, my apologies. He said so. And with that every
safety lesson ever drummed into the two of you flies out the window."

"Jeez, Mom. Chill"

"Chill, Nick? You let a stranger into our home, and you're telling me to chill?"

"You told us his name," said Alex, coming to his brother's defense.

"Did you ask to see ID?"

Of course not. I could tell by their expressions.

"Did it ever occur to you to pick up that handy gadget Mr. Alexander Bell invented and call your mother before opening the
door to a total stranger?"

They both mumbled something I couldn't make out.

"Is my life not complicated enough lately, guys? Do I have to
worry that you two have been abducted by aliens and returned
minus your Common Sense Genes?"

"Honestly, Anastasia, I think you're over-reacting just a little
bit, don't you?" said Mama. She flashed one of her Flora-on-theprowl-for-a-new-husband smiles at Zack. "After all, how could
anyone with such an honest face not be who he says he is?"

"I give up!" I turned to Zack, "Mama says you have an honest
face, so mi casa es su casa."